[The prevalence of abstinence from tobacco in patients treated in health units and related factors].

The scope of this study is to discover the prevalence and identify the variables related to tobacco abstinence in patients treated for quitting smoking through group therapy or support groups in primary health care units of the municipality of Vitória, State of Espirito Santo, in the year of 2009. A cross-sectional study was performed with 160 participants of the support groups who participated in 75% of the sessions. Telephone interviews were conducted 9 to 20 months after treatment and secondary data from the text of the initial interview were used. Chi-square and Fischer tests were used in statistical analysis and the statistical significance was 5%. It was found that 28.7% were abstainers, 51.9% had relapsed and 19.4% never stopped smoking. There was a statistical difference between the groups in the variables of marital status (0.039), previous attempts to stop smoking (0.029), amount of cigarettes smoked per day (0.019), use of medication (0.001) and reported anxiety/mood disorders (0.040). The abstaining group included more married people, people who had tried to quit smoking several times, smoked fewer cigarettes/day, showed less anxiety/mood change. The incidence of abstinence was similar to other studies and the highest percentage of subjects relapsed.